202 _ CANINE DISTEMPER 
or limbs when accorded adequate and painstaking treat- 
ment. Easily digested nourishing food must be given, 
and the bowels kept well open, whilst once at least every © 
day the dog should be assisted to stand or walk for a 
short time in order to bring the affected muscles into 
play, and help to restore their normal functions. Mild 
stimulation of the spinal column by counter-irritants may 
be occasionally tried, and once daily electricity should be 
applied to the affected parts after having first damped 
them with salt solution. For instance, if a limb 1s 
paralysed, one pole of the battery should be placed on 
. the middle of the back and the other on the foot, allowing 
a current of gradually increasing strength to pass through 
for about ten minutes. Massage is useful, as also are 
warm baths, and where there is a tendency to retention 
of feeces and urine we must evacuate same by means of 
enemas and the passage of the catheter respectively. If 
there is paralysis of the sphincter muscles, urine and 
feeces will be involuntarily voided; but as the body 
recovers its nervous tone under the influence of time and 
suitable drugs, etc. this incontinence will, as a rule, 
disappear. . 
Since large amounts of fluid exudate have from time to 
time been found on the cord at autopsy, it is recom- 
mended that pot. iodide should be internally administered, 
in doses of grs. ii. to grs. x. twice daily, as a means of 
promoting reabsorption. The same effect results from 
the subcutaneous injection of eserine combined with 
pilocarpine. 
Asa tonic, strychnine should be prescribed with arsenic 
or quinine, or either used alone. Strychnine may be 
given in the form of Easton’s Syrup or as tincture of nux 
vomica (mv. to mxii.), or one daily hypodermic injection 
of liquor strychnine (1 to 110) in doses of mi. to mv. 
This alkaloid is very cumulative and toxic; thus it is 
